Why Scuba Diving Is a Surprisingly Chill Method for Mindfulness

While temperatures drop from coast to coast in the United States, the town of Savusavu in Fiji is actually approaching prime diving conditions, with fall bringing lower wind speeds that lend access to more remote locations and clearer waters. It’s not the only season offering the cluster of volcanic islands north of New Zealand some street cred: when Survivor recently kicked off its 39th round of competitions in Fiji, host Jeff Probst admitted that he hopes to film there indefinitely. In fact, it was a combination of the show’s lush landscapes and an affordable Airbnb called “Pirate’s Paradise” that lured my husband and I to the couples escape, where our unexpected proximity to The Jean-Michel Cousteau Dive Center turned a ten-day vacation into a lesson about underwater meditation and stress control.

After we’d arrived in Savusavu and settled into the Pirate’s Pod House, our host Bruce Harbour (a friendly Australian-turned-local who even coordinating our airport pickup) instructed us that the Cousteau Resort’s Dive Center was just a five-minute stroll from our elevated hideaway. I could see the dock from our wraparound deck, and the concept of scuba diving suddenly intrigued me—I thought of a story my dad told about meeting Jean-Michel Cousteau on an expedition years ago, where they spent ten days diving together and visited several Fijian islands on the trip. Decades later, the resort has become an "eco-luxe" mecca for underwater experiences thanks to an initiative to protect the surrounding Namena Reef—one of the most diverse in fish and coral on the planet. It also offers a range of beginner-level PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) certification courses that are open to all skillsets—even children. As I passed by Jean-Michel, who still leads underwater expeditions at 81, he was playing with a dog outside of the dive center, giving a friendly welcome to the guests joining his league of “underwater ambassadors” trained on the grounds.

Once a short instructional video screening wrapped and wet suits, oxygen tanks, and goggles were provided, I was practicing inhaling and exhaling bottled oxygen with a local instructor in the resort’s pool. An hour later, I was already dipping into the open ocean and watching colorful angelfish flit past blue sea stars attached to the coral below. What surprised me, though, was an absence of the underwater anxiety I’d expected to feel—mainly due to the slow, steady breathing techniques that are par for the course when scuba diving.

I’m not alone in experiencing this unexpected calm. “Since the moment I started diving, my stress levels changed, because I learned how to control my breathing under and above water,” says Andy Frazer, who heads the Dive Center and even credits his certification for alleviating the heart palpitations he used to feel in the tense restaurant environment where he once worked. Now, he notices how the techniques he teaches have the ability to “benefit daily life in all situations” as students learn to stay calm in new environments. Plus, scuba is a surprisingly inclusive physical activity that’s accessible to people of varied levels of experience, body types, and abilities. “People who have pre-conceptions of how difficult scuba diving will be are almost always surprised at how well they did,” says Frazer. “They emerge from the water extremely proud of themselves, and in many cases, their relationship and perception of the ocean is changed for life.” After my initial lessons with Frazer, the next dive trips included deeper waters where I encountered paddling sea turtles and moray eels lounging under rock canopies on the sandy ocean floor. Silent communication like “okay” hand signals and a thumbs up (for when it’s time to surface) were all the human interaction necessary, so the deep, slow breaths with oceanic views translated quickly into a meditative underwater experience—and one that wellness experts are quick to reinforce.

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“Scuba diving can be a tool for breathwork as it requires one to be deeply conscious—you must breathe purposefully and with control,” says Erika Bloom, a certified holistic health instructor and founder of Erika Bloom Pilates, which teaches breath-centered healing movement and therapeutic modalities. Bloom has firsthand experience diving in locations like The Dead Sea, Mexico, and near her Amanyara studio in Turks and Caicos. According to her, the therapeutic effects aren’t far from what you might experience during yoga and meditation. “When we create evenness of the inhale and exhale while connecting mindfully to our breath, we benefit both mentally and physically,” she explains. “The nervous system drops to a parasympathetic state so that our body’s ability to balance and heal itself improves.” In the aftermath, diaphragmatic movement assists in organ function as well as improved sleep and even digestion. “Coupled with the womblike feeling of floating in a warm wetsuit and the natural, beautiful surroundings of the ocean can bring you into a truly profound, deep meditative calm,” says Bloom. And for anxious city-dwellers suffering from workplace burnout, gaining control of the parasympathetic response can have long-term benefits.

“We are the only living things that can self-regulate breath,” notes Jamie Graber, a breathwork trainer, integrative life coach and yoga instructor based in New York. “There are two places we live—either in sympathetic (fight-or-flight) or the parasympathetic (calm) body,” she explains. “When you focus on specifically diaphragmatic breath, you automatically instill calmness and your body moves into the parasympathetic and out of the sympathetic.” It’s this mindful control of our natural systems that can ward off spikes in anxiety-triggering cortisol, which explains why these underwater moments might offer the same sense of peace found on a meditation pillow.

It makes sense, then, that instead of fearing the possibility of sharks (my dad did mention he spotted his first hammerhead in Fiji’s coastal wild) I was able to chill out and float weightlessly—even as a beginner. In just a week’s time, a combination of delightful open water dives and one hand-written test turned into a global PADI license that will last for a lifetime. Already emboldened by our new knowledge of the depths, my husband and I booked a snorkeling trip on our Pod House host’s catamaran. As soon as we entered the water, Harbour popped up with his mask on and asked us excitedly if we could spot the shark swimming just a few feet away. Dipping down for a better view and inhaling slowly and steadily, I realized the aquatic dinosaur-descendant had already passed, along with the utter anxiety of being enveloped by an ocean—or as the pros call it, “inner space.” It wasn’t far from what Graber zen-fully describes to me as the key to mastering your nervous system. “If you control your breath, you can control your mind—if you can control your mind, you can control your life.”

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